“A gentleman? La, hear her!”
“I’ll go single, like yourself.”
Pamela’s full light grey eyes became abstracted. Anon, as she had turned in at the area railings, a young gentleman had dashed by her up the steps, and had set the knocker thundering against the panels of the hall door. As she had looked up he had looked down at her; and then he had smiled, and made a little gesture towards his hat, which if not the courtesy he would have paid to one of his own class, was nevertheless a genial, pleasant salute. She thought she had never seen so handsome a countenance; come under the gaze of such flashing dark eyes. There would be a lad for one who was lucky enough to be able to go in at the front door!
“And, indeed, miss——”
Lydia wheeled round, and perceiving Pompey lingering, all one grin, tweaked his wool.
“How dare you, you little blackamore! What are you doing here?”
“He’s waiting for orders to get me a cup of chocolate and a bit of cake, aren’t you, Pompey?” cried the quite audacious Pamela. “I’m sure my Lady’ll never miss it. And as soon as I’ve got it to give, I’ll give you a crown-piece, Pompey.”
She laughed on the little boy, and when Pamela Pounce laughed, she was something to look on; for her wide, fresh mouth curled so deliciously, and the corners of it went up so gaily, and she had such fine, white, even teeth, and as the dimples came and went, she gained such adorable little lines of fun about half-shut eyes, and the most engaging little crinkle in her cocked nose!
“La!” Mrs. Tabbishaw’s slavey cast herself into her aunt’s arm-chair, untied the ribbons of her wide straw hat, and flung it on the table. She ran her long fingers, surprisingly white in spite of their toil, through the roughened curls of her chestnut hair, stretched her long legs luxuriously, and contemplating the dust on her shabby shoes: “Thought I should have dropped, I did,” she cried, “when I come into Shepherd’s Market—three big feathers and two little ones, Aunt Lydia! And, la! the blue! ’Tis the peacockest vile colour, I ever—— And oh, here’s my Lady’s bill! And old Tabby must have it paid. She’s all swears and spits and fur-flying about it, as it is. ‘Get your aunt to pay,’ she says, ‘for her beggarly odds and ends that don’t bring an honest body a bit of worth while,’ and oh!” she yawned outrageously, “I’m to hurry back, no less, for Mrs. Alderman Gruntle’s eleventh is waiting on my pinking.”
“My lady’s account!” Lydia snatched the written sheet from her niece’s hand: “Of all the—there, that’s what comes o’ dealing with them second-class shops. Mrs. Tabbishaw thinks my Lady can be treated like one of her City bodies, I declare.”